Literary anagrams

[Opening of a story by Edgar Allan Poe]

The Cask of Amontillado
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

[Anagram summarises the rest of the story]

Rage now overtook grievous wounds, bubbling up within me. I vowed to silence that grotesque, snivelling clown forever; and fiendish, indeed, was the plan ultimately devised. He was wantonly drunk that eve, and dressed up as a fool. (Oh-ho, such a bitter irony!) I lured him to the house with false promises of wine.
Fortunato spouted frivolities, thus — "stutter, stutter, stutter" — as he was ever wont; but now I have walled the urchin up within that cellar, mute, needy and invisible under the dust of foul bones. A fine joke, his noisy anguish! How I mocked him! Truly, revenge is sweeter than the sherry that he sipped not last week.

[A poem by Robert Frost]

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It's snowing in this festive town
Whose empty streets I shiver down.
The lake is tough. Beneath high trees
The hardened earth is hellish brown.

No beasts graze off these wintry leas,
Nor people walk to see, heed me,
Or sway me from my final task.
It is no time for anguished pleas.

Tomorrow, you should softly ask
Who walked this bleak and futile pass;
O, when and, O, how did he lie
To seek quiet sleep in deep crevasse?

O, heavens, let the spirit die
I have no God to ask to keep.
Hush, do not wake me. Hush, mute hole.
Too long I woke before. I sleep.

Home is so sad [by Philip Larkin]

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped in the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Melancholy house

After you left, the house began to weep.
It misses you too. Above, awash, that leaky gutter
Shoots a mad cascade. A constant pitter-patter
Tattoos the smooth windows; and I can't sleep.

Ah, good apathy has soothed this isolation
Tonight. Shh; just listen. Outside, the door sighs
For that time when, alike, we both attain salvation
And a swift winter stiffens suffering to ice.

When You Are Old [by W B Yeats]

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Recall how, when you were naive and green,
A young boy took your then unwrinkled hand
And danced off; padded with you over sand
Like odd gold sugar. Hold this halcyon scene

And wonder where your pals now live, since school,
And whom they love. God! there's no sad old man
Who'd dream of your girl's beauty as you ran,
A wife-to-be... a dumb, daft spinster fool!

But a heart's beating! O, if hope's yet flown
I'd say so. (Bitter lump, my cold heart's made.)
Though moving, aged muddied loves must fade.
Born lonely, are we all forever alone?

(And off to find a dad!)

Love [by Francis Jammes]

Lass, when they talk of love, laugh in their face.
They find not love who seek it far and wide.
Man is a cold, hard brute. Your timid grace
Will leave his coarse desires unsatisfied.

He only lies. And he will leave you lone
Upon your hearth with children to look after,
And you will feel so old when he reels home,
To fill the morning hours with obscene laughter.

Do not believe there is any love for the winning
But go to the garden where the blue skies pour.
And watch, at the greenest rose-tree's dusky core,
The silver spider living alone, and spinning.

Retell old false love tale:

You're envy-green: an empty fiction 'tis,
And hollow consolation to the bitter.
Naive hearts, though, can crack — ere one new kiss
Repair or glue them, doubts like leaves to skitter.

Girls' standards be full high, who there see sin
Where love, in any part, fail their high wishes.
Perfection would be nice! When you're moved in,
Hell, someone's going to have to dry the dishes.

Dull deal? Feel fair, and when she is unkind,
Hey, hug her; for we all need to unwind.
Love's overrated, but I shall not groan:
I could share life with you. Why die alone?

Sir Christopher Wren
Went out with some men.
Said, "If anyone calls,
Tell them I'm designing Saint Paul's."

Said the architect's mother,
"Lying son! Tell another!"
"Mum—" (Wren's pausing) "Aw, fine!
I'm still pissed on wine."

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
Amen.

[Each line was anagrammed separately]

Three lords pray
to a whore nun: Err? Have faith,
ye, the bad woman! Hell
will not come, OK? Myth! By heeding D-
-eath, I haven't reason; I sin.
"I, I have God as ruler." Say it, buddy,
'fore God turns passive! Assure
us; He hates wags, pests. As favorite son, I grow
(O, detail: don't point meat at nuns!)
But vile murder's of evil
name.

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